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The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice

Gratitude is an emotion and a trait linked to well-being and better health, and welcoming benefits to oneself is instrumentally valuable. However, theoretical and empirical work highlights that gratitude is more fully understood as an intrinsically valuable moral emotion. To understand the role of n...

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Autores principales: Karns, Christina M., Moore, William E., Mayr, Ulrich
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375336
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00599
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author Karns, Christina M.
Moore, William E.
Mayr, Ulrich
author_facet Karns, Christina M.
Moore, William E.
Mayr, Ulrich
author_sort Karns, Christina M.
collection PubMed
description Gratitude is an emotion and a trait linked to well-being and better health, and welcoming benefits to oneself is instrumentally valuable. However, theoretical and empirical work highlights that gratitude is more fully understood as an intrinsically valuable moral emotion. To understand the role of neural reward systems in the association between gratitude and altruistic motivations we tested two hypotheses: First, whether self-reported propensity toward gratitude relates to fMRI-derived indicators of “pure altruism,” operationalized as the neural valuation of passive, private transfers to a charity versus to oneself. In young adult female participants, self-reported gratitude and altruism were associated with “neural pure altruism” in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and nucleus accumbens. Second, whether neural pure altruism can be increased through practicing gratitude. In a double-blind study, we randomly assigned participants to either a gratitude-journal or active-neutral control journal group for 3 weeks. Relative to pre-test levels, gratitude journaling increased the neural pure altruism response in the VMPFC. We posit that as a context-dependent value-sensitive cortical region, the VMPFC supports change with gratitude practice, a change that is larger for benefits to others versus oneself.
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spelling pubmed-57706432018-01-26 The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice Karns, Christina M. Moore, William E. Mayr, Ulrich Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience Gratitude is an emotion and a trait linked to well-being and better health, and welcoming benefits to oneself is instrumentally valuable. However, theoretical and empirical work highlights that gratitude is more fully understood as an intrinsically valuable moral emotion. To understand the role of neural reward systems in the association between gratitude and altruistic motivations we tested two hypotheses: First, whether self-reported propensity toward gratitude relates to fMRI-derived indicators of “pure altruism,” operationalized as the neural valuation of passive, private transfers to a charity versus to oneself. In young adult female participants, self-reported gratitude and altruism were associated with “neural pure altruism” in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and nucleus accumbens. Second, whether neural pure altruism can be increased through practicing gratitude. In a double-blind study, we randomly assigned participants to either a gratitude-journal or active-neutral control journal group for 3 weeks. Relative to pre-test levels, gratitude journaling increased the neural pure altruism response in the VMPFC. We posit that as a context-dependent value-sensitive cortical region, the VMPFC supports change with gratitude practice, a change that is larger for benefits to others versus oneself. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5770643/ /pubmed/29375336 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00599 Text en Copyright © 2017 Karns, Moore and Mayr. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Karns, Christina M.
Moore, William E.
Mayr, Ulrich
The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title_full The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title_fullStr The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title_full_unstemmed The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title_short The Cultivation of Pure Altruism via Gratitude: A Functional MRI Study of Change with Gratitude Practice
title_sort cultivation of pure altruism via gratitude: a functional mri study of change with gratitude practice
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29375336
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00599
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